New Mobile Usage Statistics From Ericsson Show Rapid Smartphone Uptake and Doubling of Mobile Data Traffic

Approximately 40 percent of all phones sold in Q3 2012 were smartphones and the growth of smartphone data traffic is expected to exceed the overall average

Mobile data traffic doubled between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012, and is expected to grow 12 times between 2012 and 2018, driven mainly by video

Total mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 6.6 billion in 2012 and 9.3 billion in 2018

There were an additional 13 million LTE subscriptions in Q3 2012, and numbers are predicted to reach 1.6 billion by 2018

Total mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 6.6 billion by the end of 2012 and 9.3 billion by the end of 2018. These figures do not include machine-to-machine (M2M) subscriptions. China alone accounted for about 35 percent of net additions during Q3, with about 40 million additional subscriptions. Brazil (9 million), Indonesia (7 million), and the Philippines (5 million) followed in terms of net additions. Overall, global mobile penetration reached 91 percent in Q3 2012, and mobile subscriptions now total around 6.4 billion. Mobile subscriptions have grown by around 9 percent year-on-year and 2 percent quarter-on-quarter.

By mid-2012, LTE coverage was provided for an estimated 455 million people globally. Within five years, more than half the world’s population is expected to benefit from to LTE coverage.

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.